Cat Geek

Monkey is an indoor cat who launched his first successful escape as a kitten. He dodged my foot and careened out the front door, running about 6 feet alongside the house before I could drop the groceries and snatch him back up. Escape numbers 2 and 3 soon followed: it was a problem in need of serious fixing.

I needed Monkey to understand he was escaping into an outside world filled with imminent danger…

So instead of feeding my cat, I hide these balls around the house…

You can build this cat toy for ~$5 from parts available at your local hardware store. The toy dangles a target of your choosing from a length of wire, attached via an alligator clip; if your cat gets bored you can unclip the target and replace it with something new.

After 3 months of searching for my purrfect cat at the shelters, a volunteer turned me on to PetHarbor, a national database of lost & found pets.